Always With Me
by bergundy
Summary: Oneshot, Sasusaku-ish. Sasuke came home, but only a few know the truth. Formerly The Persistence of Memory, edited previously for clarity.


**Notes: **If you do read, please read all the way to the end. That was the joy of writing it, although it proves that I cannot write fluff. Sasuke, by the way, has mellowed out (somewhat) by the timeframe of this oneshot.

**Second Notice: MAJOR edit. **Well, much of it is the same, but I've rearranged enough to make it more clear, I hope.

_jou-chan –_courtesy of Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin. It's how he addresses Kaoru.

Needless to say, in the context of this story, it would be overly familiar.

Theme: Angels, by Augustana

* * *

"Sasuke, you f –ing bastard, don't die on me now!"

_Die_ on you, Naruto? He coughed. A small stream of deep red spurted out of his mouth. "I don't intend to. Shut up."

"And Sakura-chan – what would she do, eh? Why'd you have to be so selfish? Why did you jump in front?" The idiot had fisted his shirt in his grubby hands, shaking him even though he knew that the wound beneath the fabric was more severe than any that either of them had ever suffered before. "I could have finished off the guy myself! I could have taken it!"

And the sad part was, really, that Naruto really could have taken it. Sasuke himself was not sure he had made the most brilliant decision of his life. (But then, to be honest, up to that point many of his decisions had been rather shitty.) Whether or not Sakura could handle what he had done was a question he did not care to answer.

"We're getting you back to Konoha. Don't you dare slip off, okay? Don't you dare! Sakura-chan is going to patch you up for the beating of a lifetime. I promise you that…"

Sasuke heard him say other things, too. "Don't you dare close your eyes."

He kept them open until he saw Sakura. And then he was content to let them slide shut, listening to the voices of his teammates – panicked, yes, but saying over and over, _home._

_

* * *

_

Most people tended to believe that Sasuke never showed affection towards the people most important to him. They should have seen him that night when every shinobi in the village under the age of twenty was forced to attend Gai's Springtime of Youth Festival. Of course, most of the female population came too.

Sasuke came into the karaoke bar after Naruto at a much lower decibel level. A discreet, sweeping glance showed him that all the girls in the giant room were anticipating the following sing-off. Huge (and, Sasuke registered, relatively horrifying) smiles wreathed their features.

For the most part, that was. His eyes riveted (without his consent) on a pink-haired head. Sakura sat at one of the large tables, watching with glazed eyes as her two best friends (both of whom happened to be loud and blond) snarled at each other over some trivial disagreement. Unlike all the other females in the room, she looked despondent and sat limply in her chair, like a puppet bereft of strings. Now and then, she would sip out of the clear-colored drink on the table beside her. Sasuke was familiar with this beverage; he'd had a lot of it immediately after his departure from Konoha. It'd had the particular virtue of helping him forget. It was not a drink he would have identified as Sakura's.

"Hey, jou-chan –"

Many things aggravated Uchiha Sasuke, so it should come as no surprise that Mystery Man was one of them. Who was he, that he had the audacity to approach the Fifth's apprentice, one of the best kunoichi in the country, let alone _his_….?

(His teammate, he meant.)

"- if I sing a song for you, will you go on a date with me?"

Sasuke fully expected Sakura to smite the miserable character through the wall. The certainty of this outcome made the beginnings of a smirk appear on his face as he drew slightly closer to his teammate.

Unfortunately, Sakura said, "Do whatever you like."

The man grinned in a way that begged to have his nose inverted (and his eyes melted, and his fingers snapped off, and…). "Is that a yes?"

"Sure," was the indifferent reply. The man left to secure a mike. Sakura took another sip from her drink.

Sasuke paused only for a second to compose his anger into a more effective, verbal form. Then he stalked over to his teammate's side. In contrast to her usual behavior, Sakura ignored him.

"Sakura, you're drunk."

She snorted in derision, making a dark frown wrinkle his forehead. It turned out, however, that she was looking at the man who was returning with his mike. Sasuke pinned his deadliest glare on the offender, whose eyes blanked in fear. He recoiled, almost as though he had physically walked into a wall.

"Kindly leave and slit your throat once you're home," advised Sasuke.

"I'll, ah…well, looks like Gai-sensei wants all the guys to sing one for the ladies, so I guess the mike won't be necessary for now." The man dared to flash Sakura a weak smile before tucking his tail between his legs and disappearing into the general crowd. Naruto, whose vehement argument with Ino had just ended (with his defeat), caught the tail end of the scene.

"What was that about, Sakura-chan?"

"Apparently Sakura attracts even greater idiots than you," responded Sasuke. (He regretted it immediately – after all, it might apply to more persons than the one who'd just departed – but then realized that no one was going to draw that conclusion.) Sakura merely shook her head and knocked back the rest of the clear liquid.

The crowd was hushed. Gai (and Lee)'s voice boomed over the loudspeakers. "Alright, Men of Konoha, show the delicate blossoms of our village your fiery spirit through the beauty and strength of your voice! Follow along with the words on the screen, on the count of three - !"

Even Naruto had noticed the aura of depression around Sakura by this time. "Aw, come on, Sakura-chan. It's starting. Don't you want to see Neji make an ass of himself, and –"

"What do I care if Neji makes an ass of himself?" There was a definite shake in her voice. She picked up her glass, forgetting that it was empty, and slammed it back down onto the table when she noticed. Sasuke had never, ever seen her like this before.

"Hey, you know, I could make an ass of myself too," Naruto said in a guileless, transparent effort to cheer Sakura up. "Would that be better?"

Sasuke cut his eyes at his teammate. "You do that every day already. It's not going to be very extraordinary."

Naruto, in a burst of rare wisdom, deferred his response to the insult to a later time. "Or maybe…" He trailed off. When he resumed, it was in a quieter voice. "Sakura-chan…if you want, I could do a _henge_ and you can even make believe _he's _…singing. Sakura-chan!" Naruto's powerless dismay at the tears that sprang to her eyes (for Sakura was a melancholy drunk) only annoyed Sasuke further.

Oh, for f – 's sake. He had always hated a lot of things. His deceased brother. Himself. And now seeing Sakura like this. Sasuke grabbed the mike and turned it on.

Gai's festival that year was especially memorable because of two reasons. The first might have become the most mortifying for one Uchiha Sasuke, except that while he was singing he had not given a damn. His voice, enhanced by the mike, had been by far the loudest. Everyone heard it clearly, and that included the one for whom he was making this great sacrifice of dignity. The heads of all the people in the room swiveled around to stare at him (after which they slid to Sakura).

The second memorable part of it was Sasuke's own realization that he would never have done it for anyone he did not absolutely _love. _(Sasuke did not sell his dignity cheaply.)

His reluctant participation in the springtime of youth, however, did not produce the intended result. As hundreds of eyes watched, Sakura visibly swallowed her sobs and strode out of the karaoke bar. Sasuke, still recovering from his epiphany, was left staring at the doors swinging in the wake of her departure.

* * *

Two years ago, Naruto had set out on a second retrieval mission in a team consisting of Shikamaru, Neji, Chouji, Kiba, and his former sensei, Kakashi.

When they returned, they had Uchiha Sasuke in tow. Sasuke himself barely remembered that day anymore – certainly not what happened between the moment he had heard Sakura's voice for the first time in ages and when he woke up to find that he was in his own bed. He _did _remember feeling as tired as he was now, after hours of training alone in the empty courtyard of his house.

When he exhaled, the cold gave his breath a tangible form, a short-lived gust of vapor that fogged the air in front of his face. He turned to go indoors, perhaps take a shower and lie down or read. As usual, there was nothing much to do around the house. Normally, one might go through the different rooms and observe what everyone else was doing. This was not an option for Sasuke, as no one else was in the building. Hell, no one else lived on the entire _street_.

Instead of going up the stairs after taking his customary shower, Sasuke slid open the front door and let himself out. The sky was overcast and the clouds hung low. Cool moisture flecked his brow as he traveled in a direction that he had often followed but never completed. It led him up to the simple steps of an apartment building, where he paused to punch in numbers that he had observed her enter many times in the past. The main door unlocked to admit him. The man at the desk gave him a vaguely warning look but did not stop him. (Perhaps he had noticed Sasuke lingering outside on various occasions?)

Sasuke walked up the stairs, his dark-colored shirt sticking to his back. He shoved back the irritating bangs from his face. His hand came away damp. Going up to the third floor, he wondered if she was home at all, and if he had just wasted his time walking through the rain. Then, from behind one of the doors, he caught a snatch of her voice as she wailed the vague, inconstant tune of the song he'd sung a few weeks ago.

(And yes, he knew now, that she was worth it – every drop and uncomfortable trickle of it.)

She didn't seem to notice him at all when he let himself in. Sakura was cooking up a storm. The kitchen steamed with colorful aromas from the food simmering in the pan on the stove. She moved to the other end of the counter and began to dice up some radish, still muttering the words to the song on the radio. He stood just outside the kitchen to watch for a moment, how her disorganization in reality formed part of a coordinated movement – radish diced, she washed a dish and dried it just in time to lower the heat on the things cooking in the pan and stir the soup inside the pot beside it. Partway through the song's second verse, though, Sakura snapped out of the frenzy of work and suddenly hurled a stem from her "discard pile" of vegetable ends at the wall three inches from Sasuke.

"F – you," she snarled. "F – you. Leave me alone. Go to hell! See if I care."

Sasuke almost winced. But he was, after all, an Uchiha. "Sakura – "

"Get out!"

How had it come to this? "Listen to me. Just for a second." Sakura, breathing hard, took the pan off the stove and crashed it down onto the countertop. A bit of sauce flew out and scalded her arm. Hissing, she shoved it under the cold stream of water in the sink and proceeded to heal the mild burn, pointedly turning away from him. Sasuke, unused to being ignored to such a degree by Sakura, summoned up his usual confidence. His voice sounded flat and cold to his own ears.

"When I came back two years ago, I know I didn't act as I should have. I was still cold to Naruto and to you. I know I've done some…terrible things. But I thought you put it behind you. If I…if I've ever hurt you since then, it was never intentional. I don't know what else I could have done." He stopped. Sakura wiped her hands on a towel and walked towards him. Without saying a word, she bent down and picked up the stem lying beside his feet. Back to cooking.

"I'm _sorry_, Sakura." A familiar feeling was constricting his throat; he pretended that it was frustration. "But what did I do? Just tell me."

"You're not here," she muttered. "Not here. Get away. Leave me alone."

He felt so hollow, just observing her as she went on with preparing the dinner. It was far too large for one. What was she thinking? Why wouldn't she meet his eyes? It had been two years, and not once since his return had she seemed to _see_ him or the changes he had made for her. And they were for her – now that he had gotten over his own denial, he had hoped…but now – "Sakura," he said again, disliking the feeling of helplessness. The only thing keeping him from shaking her by the shoulders was the certainty that it would only drive her farther away from him.

"Just _once_," she cried, "go away!"

He hated to leave her there. As he closed the door behind him, he was sure that she was sobbing behind it, surrounded by a mess of her efforts and the delicious smells from all the dishes that could not disguise the fact that she, too, was alone in her house.

He despised the sun, too, when he walked out of the building.

* * *

Walking down the dead and empty street a week later, he knew that his self-imposed exile from his team was doing him no good. He had woken that morning and gone past the underused kitchen, and for a moment, the sight of his mother's calm smiling face had arrested him. He retraced his strides, looking for the elusive lighting and shadows that had thrown him that illusion, but all he saw was the empty room, illuminated by thin shafts of sunlight through the windows. A walk to the exit into the courtyard, and he felt a sharp jab on his forehead. Recoiling, Sasuke slowly turned and looked around him. No one. Nothing. Dust that his mother would never have allowed to accumulate lined the edge between the wall and the wooden floor.

He burst out of the house, whose shadows were capricious at best, and started down the street. There was a burning feeling in his eyes this morning, as though someone had lit a torch behind them to make them water. He only had to look at the front of a shop that had been vacant for ten years for the burning sensation to heighten.

All of a sudden he couldn't leave the Uchiha compound fast enough. He found himself racing past the buildings, boarded windows and vacant glass displays and ghosts and that dreadful hollow feeling of being nothing and knowing nothing and having nothing – he had arrived at the worst possible place.

His feet had taken him to a very familiar bench. Slowing, Sasuke approached it with a composure that he didn't really feel. He wanted to turn around and go back where he had come, because if his house held bad memories, this place, too, brought back memories of more bitter times. While the sadness in his house had happened to him, here was where he had inflicted another kind of sadness on another.

When he came out of his self-inflicted mental thrashing, however, he saw that the bench was occupied. Near the left end rested a small gift basket of fresh tomatoes. And beside it, Sakura. She sat there with her head bowed and her clean, slender hands in her lap. An indescribable quality in her posture told Sasuke that she went there every morning, and that he had, in fact, wasted a lot of time in the past being jealous of whoever she was visiting in those hours.

"I'll be going soon," she said softly, still not looking at him. "You never came."

"I'm here now." When he looked at her, the burning in his eyes grew too powerful. So he looked at the tomatoes.

"I don't know why I come here every day."

"I don't either," he admitted. Through sheer strength of will, he dragged his eyes back to her face. She had always waited for him, even when he hadn't known or pretended not to care. "I don't deserve you," he whispered. If she would not look up, then he would kneel in front of her.

This was how Uchiha Sasuke proposed: with no ring, with nothing but the clothes on his back, his words, and everything in his heart.

* * *

Sakura set the flowers down and straightened slowly. Sasuke never came here, and so this place had nearly become a sanctuary to her. Sasuke never came here because he barely knew of it and didn't have any idea why Sakura would, when in fact, Sakura had gone to the same place at least once for the last two years, although less frequently now. She went there when it became too difficult for her to think straight. Sasuke, on the other hand, had no memory of it and had no reason to be there. The Uchiha had their own traditional plot of land for such purposes - even if Sasuke and his brother had become the exception.

Standing beside Sakura, Naruto bowed his blond head. His face was uncharacteristically somber. When Sakura raised her head, he said, "You can't keep on torturing yourself like this."

She released a soft laugh. "How is this any worse than what happens every day? I can't even -" Her voice shook. She paused until her breathing became more regular. "It's hard, Naruto."

"I know."

"And the fact that not everyone can see or understand what they feel...probably only five people in this entire stupid village know what's going on, and we can't even discuss it because of how _brave _and reliable we have to appear." A tiny hitch interrupted her sigh, but no tears flowed down her face. She had moved past that stage, but inside, where it really mattered, she hadn't. Sakura swallowed. "He talked to me again."

"Did you say anything back?" Naruto asked dully. His brilliant blue gaze stared at the surface of a slim cenotaph, unseeing.

"I did before, but the second time, it was so hard to pretend." Even to herself, Sakura sounded tired and defeated.

Naruto's gaze sharpened as it slid away from the cenotaph to his teammate. "We have to ignore him, Sakura." When she didn't respond, he seemed to force the words out of his throat. "He won't be like this forever. The bastard was always smart."

A cooler wind picked up, rippling across the skin of Sakura's bare arms and eliciting an unconscious shiver. She cast a glance to the skies. It would rain soon. "I don't know what's worse - knowing he's a thousand miles away and alive, or knowing he's there with me but..." She shook her head. She couldn't bring herself to say it, after all.

Her faintly bitter laugh hung in the heavy air. "Sasuke always did live in the past."

* * *

A/N: I rewrote parts of it, but I'm leaving the rest of the old note here anyway.

If you happened to interpret it in such a way that meant Sakura could not accept Sasuke's proposal then you have interpreted the oneshot as I intended it to be understood. However, if you want to know exactly what I intended, read on.

- Sasuke is not an ordinary ghost in that he can do some things. He can make himself felt (by especially sensitive people). He cannot be seen. So, when he proposed, a happy ending just wasn't possible. Why won't Sakura and Naruto tell him flat out? 1) Maybe he has selective hearing; he definitely has selective memory. 2) They want him to rest in peace, not wallow. As he certainly shall if he finds out so painfully that he's been haunting them (coughSakuracough) for two years. And then again, as Sakura said, is it better to have him like this than to never have him at all?

For those of you who understood it straight off the bat, or didn't get it but liked it for some reason and asked me about it, I love you all. XD


End file.
